Modern computer data backup solutions allow for secondary data storage devices, such as hard disks, to be backed up at the block level, where instead of reading file after file from a secondary data storage device and writing the files to a backup data storage repository, blocks of raw data at either the disk or volume level are read from the secondary data storage device without regard to file boundaries and are written as blocks to the backup data storage repository in the same physical sequence as the blocks appear on the secondary data storage device. One technique for restoring block-level backup data, commonly referred to as a “bare-metal restore” (BMR), allows backup data to be restored to a secondary data storage device of a computer, where the restoration begins when the secondary data storage device is in a “bare metal” state, where no operating system or file system is stored on the secondary data storage device, and ends when the computer and its secondary data storage device are production-ready. Current BMR techniques require that a computer to which the secondary data storage device is attached boot using a bootable image loaded from a bootable CD or USB device or loaded over a network (e.g., PXE boot). These BMR techniques require that the computer boot to a secondary operating system (OS), which is either a standard OS including proprietary restore software, or a dedicated proprietary backup restore application, and require that the restore software be specifically configured to work with the secondary OS and its file system as well.